The Red God - Part 1. The Day the Child Was Born (2)

 

THE RED GOD

This is a work of fiction.

PART I

THE CHILD BEFORE THE NAME

CHAPTER TWO

The Professor’s Son

He would remember none of it.

Not the snow.

Not the hospital.

Not the old man waiting beneath the awning.

Not the red thread around his wrist.

Not the sealed room beneath the floor.

Memory came later.

What Han Seong-jin remembered first was his father's study.

It occupied the smallest room in their house and somehow seemed larger than all the others.

Books covered two walls from floor to ceiling.

Some were in Korean.

Some in Japanese.

Several were in English.

A few were bound in cracked cloth with titles Seong-jin could not read.

His father kept journals stacked beside the desk, newspapers folded into precise rectangles, fountain pens inside a wooden box, and a brass desk lamp that cast a circle of yellow light over everything he considered important.

The room smelled of paper.

Paper and dust.

Sometimes tobacco.

His mother hated the tobacco.

His father claimed he had stopped smoking years before.

His mother claimed that a man who lied badly should not become a scholar.

Seong-jin liked listening to them argue.

They never sounded angry.

Not really.

Their arguments moved like games with rules only adults understood.

"You're smoking again."

"I am reading."

"Reading doesn't produce smoke."

"Some books do."

"Mun-seok."

"Fine."

His father would open the window.

His mother would shake her head.

Seong-jin would laugh.

Those were the years before he understood that peace was something people noticed only after it was gone.

Their house was not large, but it was warm in winter.

There was food.

His father had work.

His mother knew exactly how much rice remained in the kitchen without opening the container.

There were new shoes when Seong-jin's old ones became too small, though never before.

There were books for birthdays.

Sometimes toys.

Rarely expensive ones.

They were not rich.

But Seong-jin did not know what rich meant.

He knew only that some classmates brought lunch every day and others occasionally said they had forgotten theirs.

He also knew that when one boy forgot lunch three days in a row, his mother began packing two lunches.

She never explained why.

Neither did Seong-jin.

He simply gave the second box away.

His father learned about it months later.

"You didn't tell me."

"It wasn't important."

Mun-seok looked at him for a long moment.

Then nodded.

"Good."

That was one of the rare times Seong-jin remembered making his father visibly proud.

By the time Seong-jin was seven, Han Mun-seok had become a university lecturer.

The title impressed relatives more than it impressed his son.

To Seong-jin, his father remained the man who forgot where he had placed his glasses while wearing them.

Students occasionally came to the house.

They bowed deeply at the door.

They brought fruit.

Sometimes alcohol.

They spoke differently around Mun-seok.

More carefully.

Seong-jin noticed that.

His father seemed to become slightly larger when students entered the room.

Not physically.

Something in his voice changed.

It became measured.

Patient.

Each sentence carried somewhere deliberate.

Seong-jin would sit just outside the study pretending to read while listening.

"The law," Mun-seok once told a student, "is not the same thing as justice."

The student said nothing.

"Never confuse the two."

"But shouldn't law create justice?"

"It should."

Mun-seok turned a page.

"That is different from saying it always does."

Seong-jin looked down at the children's book in his lap.

He had stopped reading several minutes earlier.

Another student asked, "Then what should a person obey?"

His father was silent for so long that Seong-jin leaned closer to the door.

"That," Mun-seok finally said, "is the question people usually answer too late."

Seong-jin remembered the sentence.

He did not know why.

Children remembered strange things.

The smell of wet wool.

A scratch on a desk.

One sentence spoken between adults who had forgotten a child was nearby.

Years later, he would remember entire rooms because of a single phrase.

At seven, he merely stored them somewhere.

His father taught economics and public administration.

At least that was how Seong-jin explained it when teachers asked.

Mun-seok's actual interests seemed to change every month.

One week he studied land ownership.

Another week taxation.

Then Japanese colonial administration.

Then American constitutional structures.

Then Korean legal institutions.

"What do you actually study?" Seong-jin asked once.

His father looked up from a book.

"People."

Seong-jin frowned.

"Mother says you're not good with people."

From the kitchen, Hye-ja shouted, "I said no such thing."

Mun-seok smiled.

"You see?"

"What?"

"Evidence."

Seong-jin did not understand.

His father returned to reading.

On the desk lay several old government documents.

Their paper was yellow and brittle.

Seong-jin reached toward one.

Mun-seok's hand came down over it.

"Not that."

His voice was sharper than usual.

Seong-jin withdrew his fingers.

"I'm sorry."

Mun-seok's expression softened immediately.

"No. I shouldn't have frightened you."

"What is it?"

"Old paperwork."

"Why can't I touch it?"

"Because it's fragile."

That seemed reasonable.

Seong-jin stood on his toes.

At the bottom of the document was a red mark.

A circle.

No.

Not exactly a circle.

It looked like a seal.

Five shapes surrounded something at the center.

He leaned closer.

His father folded the document before he could see more.

"Go help your mother."

"I'm reading."

"You were spying."

"I wasn't."

"You were."

"How do you know?"

"Because I was once your age."

Seong-jin considered that.

It was difficult to imagine.

Adults seemed to have been born already knowing how to be disappointed.

He left the room.

Behind him, his father locked the document inside the bottom drawer of his desk.

Seong-jin heard the key turn.

There were rules in the Han household.

Shoes stayed at the entrance.

Books were not thrown.

Food was not wasted.

Adults were greeted properly.

Homework came before the radio.

And Seong-jin was never to open the bottom drawer of his father's desk.

The last rule made the drawer infinitely more interesting than all the others.

For nearly a year, he obeyed it.

Then one rainy afternoon, he found the key.

It had fallen beneath the desk.

Seong-jin was eight.

His father was at the university.

His mother had gone to the market.

The house was quiet except for rain.

He stood in the study holding the key.

He knew immediately what it opened.

That knowledge felt almost like guilt.

He considered putting it on the desk.

Instead, he crouched.

The key entered the lock smoothly.

Click.

Seong-jin froze.

Nothing happened.

He opened the drawer.

Inside were papers.

Dozens.

Some were tied with string.

Some were inside envelopes.

There were photographs.

A few newspaper clippings.

A small wooden box.

And beneath them all lay the document with the red seal.

Seong-jin lifted it carefully.

The writing was difficult.

Old Chinese characters.

Japanese annotations.

Handwritten Korean in the margins.

He could read only fragments.

Names.

Dates.

Places.

One date appeared repeatedly.

He knew the year.

School had taught him.

The treaty.

The loss of sovereignty.

The beginning of something adults discussed with clenched jaws.

Five names appeared together.

Seong-jin sounded them out quietly.

The names meant nothing to him.

Not yet.

Beside each name was a red mark.

At the bottom of the page, someone had written a sentence in Korean.

The ink was faded.

Seong-jin leaned closer.

A country can survive betrayal.

Beneath it:

What it cannot survive is inheritance.

A floorboard creaked behind him.

Seong-jin turned.

No one was there.

He listened.

Rain tapped against the window.

Somewhere in the kitchen, water dripped steadily into the sink.

He looked back at the document.

Something had changed.

He was certain of it.

One of the red marks seemed darker.

Wet.

Seong-jin touched it.

His fingertip came away red.

He dropped the paper.

The document landed flat on the floor.

The mark was dry again.

His finger was clean.

Seong-jin stared at it.

Then the wooden box inside the drawer made a sound.

Tap.

He stopped breathing.

Tap.

Seong-jin slowly looked toward it.

The box was small enough to fit in both hands.

Dark wood.

No lock.

A red cord had been wrapped around it several times.

Tap.

Something inside moved.

Seong-jin backed away.

He should have closed the drawer.

He should have left.

Instead, he reached toward the box.

Children were brave in precisely the situations where wisdom would have been more useful.

His fingers touched the red cord.

The front door opened.

"Seong-jin?"

His mother's voice.

He nearly screamed.

He shoved the paper back into the drawer.

The box shifted.

The red cord loosened.

"Seong-jin?"

"Here!"

He closed the drawer.

Locked it.

Put the key on his father's desk.

By the time Hye-ja entered the room, he was sitting on the floor with a book open across his knees.

She looked at him.

Then at the desk.

"What are you doing?"

"Reading."

"On the floor?"

"It's comfortable."

She stared at him.

Seong-jin tried to appear innocent.

His mother had raised him long enough to recognize this as evidence of guilt.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"Seong-jin."

"Really."

Hye-ja approached.

She saw the key.

Her expression changed.

Not anger.

Fear.

It appeared so quickly that Seong-jin almost doubted he had seen it.

"Did you open the drawer?"

He hesitated.

His mother crouched in front of him.

"Tell me."

"Just once."

Her eyes closed.

"Did you touch anything?"

"Some paper."

"What else?"

"Nothing."

The wooden box tapped from inside the drawer.

Once.

Hye-ja went completely still.

Seong-jin looked toward the desk.

His mother's hand closed around his wrist.

Hard.

"Mother?"

She pulled him to his feet.

"Go to your room."

"But—"

"Now."

He had never heard that tone before.

Seong-jin left.

At the doorway, he looked back.

His mother stood before the desk.

She was staring at the locked drawer.

Not like someone looking at something unfamiliar.

Like someone looking at something she had hoped never to see again.

His father came home early that evening.

Seong-jin heard his parents arguing behind the study door.

Not playing.

Not the harmless argument about cigarettes or money or windows left open.

This was different.

"You kept it?"

His mother.

"I needed it."

"You said you destroyed everything."

"I said I would deal with it."

"That's not the same thing."

"Lower your voice."

"He's eight years old."

"I know how old my son is."

"Then act like it."

Silence.

Seong-jin sat in the hallway.

His knees were drawn against his chest.

He knew he should leave.

He stayed.

His father spoke again.

"Did he open the box?"

"No."

"Are you certain?"

"I heard it."

Another silence.

Longer.

"What?"

"The box."

Hye-ja's voice had become quieter.

"It moved."

Inside the study, a chair scraped against the floor.

His father's next words were almost inaudible.

"That's impossible."

"You said that at the hospital."

Seong-jin frowned.

Hospital?

"Don't."

"You said I was exhausted."

"You were."

"I saw the thread."

"Stop."

"And you saw something too."

His father's voice hardened.

"Hye-ja."

"What did you see?"

Seong-jin leaned closer.

The door opened.

His father stood there.

Their eyes met.

Neither moved.

Mun-seok looked down at his son.

"How long have you been sitting there?"

Seong-jin tried to think of a lie.

Too slowly.

His father sighed.

"Come inside."

Seong-jin entered.

The wooden box sat on the desk.

The red cord was gone.

The lid remained closed.

His mother stood near the window, arms folded tightly across her chest.

His father sat down.

"Did you read the papers?"

"A little."

"What did you understand?"

"There were five names."

Mun-seok glanced toward his wife.

"What else?"

"1905."

"Anything else?"

Seong-jin remembered the sentence.

A country can survive betrayal.

What it cannot survive is inheritance.

He repeated it.

His father's face changed.

"Where did you read that?"

"On the paper."

"Show me."

Mun-seok opened the drawer and pulled out the document.

He placed it on the desk.

"Where?"

Seong-jin pointed.

The space was blank.

He frowned.

"It was here."

"There is nothing there."

"There was."

His mother turned away.

His father examined the paper.

"You may have misread something."

"I didn't."

"Old handwriting can be difficult."

"It was Korean."

Mun-seok looked at him.

For the first time, Seong-jin realized his father was frightened.

That frightened him more than anything in the drawer.

"What is the box?"

he asked.

Neither parent answered.

"Father?"

Mun-seok placed both hands on the desk.

"It belonged to your grandfather."

"What is inside?"

"Nothing you need to worry about."

"Then why is Mother scared?"

Hye-ja looked toward her husband.

That was a mistake.

Seong-jin saw it.

Children noticed the truths adults tried to exchange silently.

"Is it dangerous?"

"No," Mun-seok said.

His mother said nothing.

"Then can I see it?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

Seong-jin frowned.

His father rarely used those words.

They ended the conversation precisely because they explained nothing.

"Go wash before dinner."

Seong-jin did not move.

"Now."

He left.

The study door closed behind him.

Late that night, Seong-jin woke to the sound of voices.

He lay beneath his blanket.

The house was dark.

His parents were speaking somewhere near the front door.

He slipped out of bed.

The study was empty.

The wooden box was gone.

A thin strip of light came from the entrance hall.

Seong-jin approached silently.

His father stood there wearing his coat.

His mother held the wooden box.

"Where are you taking it?" she asked.

"Away."

"Where?"

"Somewhere he can't find it."

"Who?"

Mun-seok did not answer.

Hye-ja grabbed his sleeve.

"You've spent eight years refusing to tell me what happened that morning."

"This isn't about that."

"It has always been about that."

Mun-seok lowered his voice.

"The less you know, the safer you are."

His wife almost laughed.

"Men say that when they want to keep secrets."

"This isn't a secret."

"What is it, then?"

Mun-seok looked at the box.

"A mistake."

He took it from her.

Hye-ja stared at him.

"Whose?"

His answer came after several seconds.

"People who are dead."

He opened the door.

Cold air entered the house.

Seong-jin hid behind the wall.

His father stepped outside.

Before closing the door, Mun-seok looked down the dark street.

No one stood there.

Then he looked in the opposite direction.

His body stiffened.

Seong-jin could not see what he saw.

"Mun-seok?"

Hye-ja whispered.

His father closed the door immediately.

Locked it.

Then locked it again.

"What happened?"

"Turn off the lights."

"What?"

"All of them."

"Why?"

"Do it."

Hye-ja moved toward the living room.

Mun-seok pressed his back against the door.

The wooden box was still in his hands.

Something tapped inside.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Seong-jin stopped breathing.

Then someone knocked from outside.

Three slow knocks.

No one moved.

Another three.

Mun-seok's face had gone pale.

"Who is it?" Hye-ja whispered.

He shook his head.

The knock came again.

Seong-jin looked toward the frosted glass beside the door.

A shadow stood on the other side.

Tall.

Motionless.

His father set the wooden box on the floor.

"Take Seong-jin into the bedroom."

Hye-ja looked toward the hallway.

Their eyes found him immediately.

His mother rushed over.

"What are you doing out here?"

Before he could answer, she pulled him behind her.

The person outside knocked again.

Then spoke.

The voice belonged to an old man.

"Professor Han."

Mun-seok closed his eyes.

Seong-jin felt his mother's hand tighten around his shoulder.

The old man continued.

"You have something that belongs to us."

His father's voice shook.

"No."

A quiet laugh came through the door.

"You always were a poor liar."

Seong-jin looked at his father.

Mun-seok had never looked so small.

"Go away."

"Open the door."

"No."

"Professor."

The old man sounded almost disappointed.

"You cannot keep what was never yours."

Mun-seok looked down at the wooden box.

"What do you want?"

The answer came immediately.

"Not the box."

Silence filled the house.

Then Seong-jin realized everyone was looking at him.

Even before the old man spoke again, somehow he knew.

"I came to see the boy."

Seong-jin stared at the shadow.

Something strange happened.

His fear disappeared.

Not slowly.

Completely.

The feeling simply switched off.

He stepped around his mother.

"Seong-jin."

His father's voice.

He ignored it.

The shadow on the other side of the glass seemed to lean closer.

Seong-jin walked toward the door.

His mother caught his arm.

"Don't."

He looked up at her.

"Who is he?"

She could not answer.

Seong-jin turned toward his father.

"Do you know him?"

Mun-seok stared at his son.

"No."

The old man chuckled outside.

Another lie.

Seong-jin knew it.

He could feel it.

Not because of his father's face.

Not because of his voice.

Somehow, the lie seemed to have weight.

A pressure behind Seong-jin's eyes.

He looked toward the door again.

The old man placed one hand against the frosted glass.

Five fingers became visible.

Around the smallest finger was a dark line.

Red.

Even through the glass, Seong-jin knew its color.

His wrist began to itch.

He looked down.

For just an instant, a thin red thread appeared against his skin.

His mother gasped.

Then it vanished.

Mun-seok grabbed the wooden box from the floor.

"Get away from my house!"

The shadow remained still.

"You know how this works."

"No."

"You saw the ledger."

Mun-seok said nothing.

"The name is already written."

Seong-jin looked at his father.

"What name?"

His father's eyes filled with something the boy had never seen before.

Not fear.

Guilt.

The old man's hand slid slowly down the glass.

"Sleep well, young master."

Seong-jin felt cold travel through his body.

The shadow stepped away.

Footsteps moved down the street.

One.

Two.

Three.

Then nothing.

Mun-seok waited nearly ten minutes before opening the door.

Outside, the street was empty.

Rain from the afternoon had dried hours before.

Yet directly in front of the door lay something wet.

A small circle painted on the stone.

Dark red.

At its center were five finger marks.

His father closed the door.

That night, nobody slept.

At dawn, Mun-seok burned the wooden box in a metal drum behind the house.

Seong-jin watched from the kitchen window.

The wood burned easily.

Too easily.

Black smoke rose into the morning.

His father waited until nothing remained but ash.

Then he poured water over it.

Only after Mun-seok went back inside did Seong-jin notice something.

Among the wet black ash lay a single piece of red thread.

It had not burned.

The wind lifted it.

For a moment it hovered above the drum.

Then it disappeared over the wall.

Seong-jin pressed one hand against the glass.

He did not know what the thread meant.

He did not know who the old man was.

He did not know why his father had lied.

But at eight years old, Han Seong-jin understood something for the first time.

There were things adults feared more than death.

And somehow,

one of them knew his name.